The Devil You Don't
by Soleya
Summary: Someone's playing around in Sam's head again; she's certain of it.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is not what I meant to be writing - I have a million other things in the works, but this one happened over about three days. What can I say? I was possessed. I didn't even try to give it a genre, because I have no idea what it is. Just... stick with me.

This fic takes place in that very short span of time at the end of New Order, Part 2.

As always, thanks to polrobin for the beta.

This fic is dedicated to neewom, who wrote me the sweetest note that the site wouldn't let me respond to for some reason. Consider this a thank you for the kind words. :-)

* * *

**Chapter One: Waking to a Weird Dream**

Sam woke to a nagging pain in her lower back and shifted, rolling her hips, then her shoulders to the right. Her face landed in the gap between the two pillows, making her grunt and shift again until she landed squarely in the first pillow, hugging the second.

Hadn't she shelled out good money for this mattress just to avoid this crap?

She'd never been able to go back to sleep in the mornings – or hang out in bed – so she pushed herself up to sitting and rubbed at her eyes before opening them.

And then rubbed them again.

This wasn't her house.

Or her quarters, though by the look of the gray concrete walls, she was on base... somewhere. But the bed was bigger than usual – VIP quarters? That would be strange.

The vague idea crossed her mind that she might be in isolation. That would explain it – if she'd been infected with something, she might not remember ending up there, and the docs had used stranger places as isolation wards when things got crowded. Curious, Sam pushed out of bed and padded barefoot to glance out of the small (oddly, curtained) window.

Nope. Nothing.

If it was quarantine, she would have at least expected some attempt at guarding the room. Briefly testing the knob, she was a little surprised when it turned.

Quickly backing away, she took stock. It was definitely the SGC. At least, it _looked_ like the SGC, but it was no room setup she recognized. And there were two of everything – two mirrors, two dressers. Two pillows, though they lay askew, thanks to her. She crossed to one of the dressers, caught her reflection, and stopped dead.

When had her hair grown out? And when had she started wearing nightgowns on base?

"Okay," she said to no one in particular, "I'm not buying this. You can get out of my head now, 'cause you've got it all wrong."

It wouldn't be the first time, after all – her brain seemed to be fair game. The Entity, Sokar... but this, the long hair, the nightgown... this was reminiscent of someone else altogether. Someone altogether too recent, and the thought sent nasty shivers up her spine. "Fifth? Fifth, I know you're here."

But the room was still, silent. Rifling through the first dresser (full of clothes that seemed to be hers, and yet weren't), she finally found a set of fatigues and changed before setting out to find the colonel – or anyone, really, who might give her a clue what was going on.

It was a pretty damn convincing version of the SGC. Convincing enough that she was beginning to seriously reconsider her previous thought – maybe it _was _real. So what the hell was happening to her?

It wasn't the colonel she found first – not counting all of the lower-ranking men that she could hardly walk up to and say, "Hey, where the hell am I?" - but the team archaeologist. "Daniel!" she called.

He turned with a smile that was just a little too big. "Hey, sleepyhead."

She blinked, taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"It's just not like you," he said, the smile just refusing to quit. "But you of all people deserve a little extra sleep, so..."

"Um... I don't..."

He made a show of looking her up and down as he approached. "Feeling kind of military today, huh?"

How else was she supposed to feel? But she didn't have time to ask that as Daniel closed the distance – all of it, not stopping until his hands were on her hips and his lower body pressed to hers. "Wha-"

His lips confidently silenced her, kissing her soundly, rendering her so shocked that it was a long moment before it even occurred to her to do anything about it. Giving his shoulders a solid shove, she stepped back, but only managed to gain a few inches between their hips before his hands stopped her. "Sam?"

"Daniel! What the _hell_ are you _doing_?" she demanded, one hand automatically moving to her mouth.

In response, he did the last thing she ever would have expected – he laughed at her. "And here I thought I was the shy one."

"The what?" She was losing it. Her heart was pounding, her head spinning, and she'd gone completely insane. Bonkers. Crazy. It was the only explanation.

"You know, last night I know I said I kind of agreed, but I've really thought about it this morning and decided that you're right," he told her matter-of-factly. "Yes, this is a military base, but it's not just where we work; it's where we spend all of our time. Sometimes, literally, _all_ of our time. If we can't show affection here, then we're just... we're doomed. So you're right. I should be able to kiss my wife in public on this base if I damn well please."

That sound Sam heard could only be her jaw hitting the floor. "Your _wife_?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: Putting a Foot Down**

"What do you mean, I'm not your husband?" Daniel demanded, dragging Sam unceremoniously back into – and she shuddered to think it – _their _quarters. "What the hell is going on with you?"

"With me? Oh, that's funny," she shot back. "This is all very, very funny, and you can give up any time now. I'm not buying it."

"Buying what?"

"This! This – this _sham_!" she cried, gesturing to the twin dressers. "Married? Are you kidding me?" Well, he had part of it right – the SGC was much more believable than that crazy farm out in the middle of nowhere, and no, maybe impersonating Pete hadn't worked out so well, but Fifth had really missed a memo this time.

"Sam." Daniel's voice was soft, hurt. "Is this about last night? I know we went to sleep mad, and I'm sorry for that, but... I think 'sham' is a little harsh!"

A hysterical giggle bubbled up through her chest as she rubbed her eyes in irritation. "This is insane!" When the fake Daniel blinked, surprised, she pressed, "I'm not falling for it this time. You might as well quit while you're ahead, because I'm done. You hear me? I'm done. It's over."

Fully expecting the archaeologist to shimmer and morph into her newest nemesis – or some other Replicator, at least – she was more than a little surprised when he took a step back instead, his face instantly white as the military-issue sheets on the bed. "You... you don't mean that. Sam – sweetheart – I know we've had our issues, but... but I love you. Please."

The way his eyes glistened, the true pain on his face stopped her in her tracks. Okay, maybe he was a hallucination, but a good one, and everything inside her railed against hurting him even if he was all in her head.

And then he started for her, and she realized that that had been the plan all along – for his pain to gain him entrance. "No. No, no, no, stop," she protested, holding up a solid hand to stop his advance. "You listen to me, Fifth. Daniel and I are not married, and this is not real. None of this is real."

Not-Daniel blinked, his hurt expression faltering toward confusion and concern. "Sam?"

"I'm not talking to you like that any more," she pressed, perching on the edge of the bed and crossing her arms. "If you want to talk to me, Fifth, you can talk to me as yourself. But I'm not letting you suck me in again. No more visions, no more crazy scenarios. Just you and me."

Still, he just stood there, mouth hanging open, eyes blinking almost comically in shock. When he finally moved, it was to backpedal – never taking his eyes off her, he moved to the desk and fished around blindly until his fingers found the phone. "Hey, it's Daniel," he said into the receiver. "Could you send a medical team to my quarters? Sam's not... exactly... herself."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Carter, Too**

"So, I actually think it might be a medical device," Daniel explained, half-trotting down the corridor to keep up with his team leader and best friend. "I'm only about halfway done with the translations, but if I'm right and Sam can make it work, and then maybe we'll pass it on to Doctor Brightman for further study."

"O...kay," he muttered, then added acerbically, "Why do you tell me this stuff?"

Daniel grinned and shrugged. Sometimes babbling until Jack's head exploded was grand entertainment. "I was just going to her lab to give her a head's up. Care to..." He trailed off as the woman in question crossed the corridor ahead of them. "Sam! Hey, Sam!"

Her blue eyes flew to his immediately, but there was something... odd... there. She looked a little confused, almost lost, but as she stared at him, it morphed into an expression Daniel was much more familiar with from her – determination. She covered the corridor in long strides and, before he quite figured out what was happening, wrapped her arms around his neck and planted one solidly on his lips.

"Mmphh!" he protested against her lips, trying to recoil and finding himself caught in her embrace. It took a moment for his brain to get further than that, to figure out the next steps, before he reached behind him to gently untangle her arms and push her away, holding her hands safely in front of her and down. "What's going on?" he choked.

"Like you don't know," she growled.

Jack's tone was just as dark. "Something you wanna tell me, Daniel?"

"Uh..." Flummoxed, it took him a second to come up with anything – anything at all – to say. "Is this some kind of joke?" he managed finally. "Did _he_ put you up to this?" He couldn't imagine that, but Jack had done more devious things, and sending Sam after him was pretty much guaranteed to set him off balance.

But he was either wrong or she was a much better actress than he gave her credit for, because the look she gave him could melt glaciers. She pulled her hands away. "We talked about this."

"Ah, no, I'm pretty sure that's a conversation I'd remember," he insisted, taking a step back for safety. "Are you okay?"

It took her long enough to answer that he hazarded a glance at Jack, who – thankfully – was also looking at her like she'd just grown a tail and wings. Well, at least it wasn't just him.

"No," she spat softly, though her eyes sparkled a little and her voice quivered, "I am not okay. _This _is not okay, Daniel. And this conversation is not over."

Apparently, it was over for the moment, though, as she spun on her heel to flee. Daniel was too shell-shocked to stop her, leaving Jack to grab her wrist. "Oh, no, you don't. You don't get to act all crazy and then just walk away."

"Get your hands _off_ me!" Whipping around, she yanked out of her CO's grip, her eyes ablaze. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Only a beat went by before he answered coolly, "Watch it, Major."

She blinked. "Major?" The uncertainty Daniel had first seen in her eyes returned as she glanced his way again. "Who is this guy?" she asked before looking back at Jack. "No, seriously. Who the hell are you?"

Daniel sucked in a breath, but if Jack was upset by that, he didn't show it. "Yep, that settles it," the colonel said simply. "Off to the infirmary with you." Ignoring her protests, he wrapped a hand firmly around her upper arm and hauled her toward the elevator, leaving one very confused Daniel Jackson in his wake.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: One of These Things Just Doesn't Belong  
**_Somewhere in a universe not so parallel to ours..._

Folding up the blood pressure cuff, the nurse stepped back and offered her patient a small smile. "The doctor will be in shortly."

Sam stared after her as the drape flipped shut and continued to swing a little – watching it was infinitely preferable to looking to her left, where not-Daniel sat staring at her with this slightly ill, concerned puppy dog expression. She hadn't failed to notice the gold band around his finger, which had led her to the somewhat frightening realization that she wore one, too. Part of her really, really wanted to take it off, but while she knew it was all fake, that seemed harsh, somehow.

"Sam? You wanna tell me what's going on?"

The voice, the subtle heel click, the way she suddenly appeared through the curtain nearly knocked Sam's breath away, rendering her stunned for the second time that morning. "Janet?" she breathed.

"Who else would it be?" the doctor answered with a concerned smile, already pulling out her penlight to check her patient's eyes.

This part of the... the vision, hallucination, dream, whatever it was, Sam could understand, for she so wanted it to be true, but she knew better. She remembered every second of that day, the chaos, the fear, the utter panic as she watched Colonel O'Neill take a staff blast straight to the torso. And the empty, aching hole in her own chest as she watched the medics carry two litters through the Gate for home – one holding her CO, the other her best friend.

She gently pushed the woman's hand away, shaking her head. "This isn't right."

"What isn't, honey?" Janet asked softly, still searching her eyes even though she'd abandoned the penlight.

"You're dead."

The doctor blinked, then raised an eyebrow. "Not last I checked."

"Don't feel too bad," Daniel spoke up dryly from his place in the corner. "She says we're not married. She thinks she's military, too, and she keeps calling me Firth."

"Fifth," Sam corrected automatically.

Janet's eyebrow crept higher. "Fifth? Who are the first four?"

"Oh, hardy har, har." Okay, so maybe it wasn't Fifth – or if it was, he'd developed significantly more patience. They were determined to keep up the charade, at any rate. "I don't understand the point of this," she grumbled.

"It's procedure, Sam," Janet explained patiently. "Especially with the types of things we come into contact with, any sort of personality change like this calls for a full physical. You know that."

Sam sighed. "And _you _know that wasn't what I meant." It had all been so clear the first time, with Fifth, with the torture and the visions. By positioning himself as her fiance, he'd set himself up for everything he wanted, including – and the thought still made her a little ill – sleeping together. It was his happy ending. But this...

The odds of her jumping into bed with Daniel were slim, at best.

No, the more she thought about it, the less this seemed like Fifth's handy work, after all. But it was all so real, and she was hard-pressed to think of other beings that could manage such a thing. The other human-form replicators, sure. Shifu – the harcesis. Maybe an ascended being, but she wasn't even completely convinced of that.

Come to think of it, Daniel had mentioned a similar experience with Amonet and the hand device...

And then it clicked. "Intel. You want intel."

"What?" Janet was looking at her like she was crazy, but that was to be expected, right?

"You want me to insist that this is all wrong and tell you how it should be," Sam pressed. "You want me to tell you everything I was working on, and all about the colonel, and Teal'c, and you're hoping that I'll let something important slip. Well, I won't. I'm not telling you a damn thing."

Janet pushed to her feet. "Sam... Sam, that's crazy."

Using her best friends against her was a down-low dirty trick, and it was going to be difficult to avoid revealing anything.

And then she made the mistake of looking at Daniel.

And he looked like he was about to cry.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Mind the Gap  
**_The SGC_

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Carter raised an eyebrow at Doctor Weir, and Jack couldn't blame her – that was about the most vague question he'd ever heard. "After... what?" she asked finally. "I mean, you usually ask someone that after they've fainted or something, right? And I don't... There's nothing like that. Nothing's happened."

Doctor Brightman stepped inside the curtain but didn't interrupt, watching her patient carefully.

"Where were you before you, uh... _caught_ Daniel and I in the corridor?" Jack asked, intentionally choosing the most innocent verb he could come up with.

"In my lab."

"Well, that could be something, Major," Weir suggested. "What were you working on?"

"Doctor," she corrected curtly. "And I've been working on the phase enhancements for the naquadah generator for weeks."

"And that's what you were doing this morning?" Both superiors knew she wasn't – the generators were either off-world or in secure storage.

"Well, no," Carter said softly. "I wasn't really working on anything this morning. I, ah..." Only once all of the other three in the room had adopted their best intrigued stares did she confess, "I woke up there. I was... asleep at my lab table."

Doctor Brightman spoke first, though Jack knew the other doctor was thinking the same thing. "And that didn't strike you as odd?"

Well, they were new.

"Frankly, no," her patient answered. "Look, sometimes I wake up with an idea, and I can't get back to sleep, so I go work on it. It's not all that strange."

"Colonel?" Weir asked, begging confirmation.

Jack couldn't give it – not for sure – but he shrugged. He might not know for sure that she did exactly that, but it was right up her alley. "I'd buy that. So what's the last thing you remember before waking up? Do you actually recall going to your lab in the middle of the night?"

"I... No," she admitted, troubled. "I guess I don't."

"What _do _you remember?" he pressed gently.

It quickly became clear that what was bothering her was not what she _didn't_ remember, but what she did. "I was in my quarters. We were getting ready for bed."

We. Carter and Daniel. That thought was so incredibly... wrong. Jack could only hope that he didn't look as disturbed as he felt.

Her next words were little more than a whisper. "He's avoiding me, isn't he?"

Yeah, he was, and the colonel didn't quite know how he felt about that. On the one hand, seeing them together – the whole idea of it – was not something he wanted to deal with. On the other... Carter was hurting, and a part of him wanted to tell the younger man to buck the hell up.

"I'm sure you can understand that Doctor Jackson is a bit confused by all this," Doctor Weir told her. "He's going to need some time."

Staring down at her hands, she nodded.

"Now, I don't mean to offend you, Major – uh, Doctor – Carter," the woman went on, "but the SGC has seen any number of things that could explain this. Cloning, shape-shifting, retroviruses that can affect DNA. So I have to ask... Doctor Brightman, are we sure she is who she says she is?"

"I haven't had a chance to do a full exam yet," the physician shrugged, "but as soon as I can get some blood, we'll run the DNA. I'll let you know if I find anything out of the ordinary."

Jack and Weir got to their feet, but Carter held up a warning hand as the doctor approached. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend you, either – I'm sure you're very good at your job. But if I have to be poked and prodded, I'd really prefer to have Janet do it."

Brightman's eyes flew wide, and it took only a few unfortunate seconds before Jack found both her gaze and Weir's firmly on him. After a moment, Carter looked up at him, too. "What?" she asked softly.

Oh, he'd been so grateful to get out of telling her the first time – being unconscious and in surgery and all. He took a breath and let it out very, very slowly. "About that..."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Gone Mental**  
_Not in this world..._

"Are we even sure she is who she says she is?" Daniel asked, irritated, pacing the corridor in front of the isolation room where General Hammond was questioning his wife. "I mean, we've seen things, right? Not, like, us, but in the mission reports. Is she even really Sam?"

"That's Sam, all right. Down to the antibodies for that little virus you two picked up on your honeymoon."

Daniel looked up at Doctor Fraiser with pain in his eyes. "I'm not sure if that's what I wanted to hear or not."

Janet could understand that; she was fairly conflicted, herself. "Well, on the up side, it means she's here. Safe. With us, not... kidnapped on some alien spaceship or, or... I don't know, missing altogether."

"I think I'd almost rather the spaceship. That way, at least it would be something concrete, and we could _do_ something. We could send Maybourne and his team and go get her back." Choking down his emotions, he kicked at a line of paint on the floor. "Because it also means, doesn't it, that something's wrong with her brain? That she's really, really sick?"

She wanted to tell him no – to assure him, at least, that she could fix whatever it was. But mental disorders were notoriously hard to pin down and even harder to treat, and hers was like nothing Janet had ever seen before.

Unless...

Crossing the corridor in three quick steps, she reached for the door handle.

"Wait," Daniel protested. "You can't-"

Janet ignored him completely and pushed the door open. Inside, both occupants turned to look at her – one in surprise, the other in irritation. "Doctor Fraiser, I-"

"What if we're both right?" In hindsight, interrupting General Hammond wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done. Before she could think about that too much, she pushed ahead. "I mean, I know you're my Sam. I _know _you are. But you know you're not. What if you _are_ Sam, just... someone else's?"

"Then whose is she, exactly?" Daniel asked dryly from behind her.

General Hammond pushed to his feet. "I'm not sure I'm following you, Doctor."

"I am," Sam spoke up. "But I've considered that, and I think you're wrong."

"We've come across alternate realities before," Janet argued.

"Yes, but not like this," the scientist insisted. "If I had stepped into your reality, I would still be myself. In _my_ body. And I'm not."

Janet raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, I am," she edited. "Kind of. But this isn't me. The long hair, the wedding ring. The manicure," she added, noticing her fantastic nails for the first time. "None of it is mine. And if I had stepped into this reality, then there should be your Sam _plus_ me, not some weird conglomeration."

Daniel sucked in a breath. "What, like... she's gone? Just... overwritten?"

"No, I don't think so."

Janet wasn't about to give up. "But isn't it possible?"

"_How_?" Sam cried. "The last thing I remember, I was typing up a report. _This _Sam was apparently _sleeping_. And we're the only two affected. You think this just... just happened? That someone... sprinkled us with fairy dust? I don't buy that."

"That's one of your favorite phrases, isn't it?" the doctor shot back dryly.

"Look." Angrily, the other woman pushed back from the table and started to pace. "I don't know exactly what's going on here. But I know that what you're suggesting is pretty much impossible, and that leads me back to my original assumption: someone is messing with me."

"Us," Daniel insisted. "Whatever this is, it's affecting _us_."

Sam just rolled her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven: Major/Doctor/Carter/Sam**  
_The SGC_

"That's Major Carter, all right," Doctor Brightman confirmed. "Down to the protein marker left by the Goa'uld symbiote she carried several years ago."

Jack and Doctor Weir nodded.

Teal'c stepped a little closer to the group. "Perhaps it would be best not to mention the Tok'ra Jolinar to Major Carter at this time."

"Mister Teal'c?" Weir asked.

"No, he's right," Jack said. "She was pretty upset about Doc Fraiser. Come to think of it, she didn't take to Teal'c too well, either. Until we get this figured out, maybe some things are better kept quiet."

Doctor Weir cringed a little. "Unfortunately, Colonel-"

"Yeah, I know. I'll talk to her." Inwardly pondering why he was the one who always got stuck with this crap, Jack knocked quietly on the isolation room door before pushing it open and stepping inside. They'd given Carter her uniform again, but she still lay on her back on the bed, knees pulled up, arms tightly hugging her stomach. She looked... a lot more vulnerable than his Carter could ever be. "You okay?" he asked precious seconds before it occurred to him how stupid that was.

"Well," she answered softly, her voice a mix of pain and irritation, "I don't know. I'm in a base full of strangers – oh, including a Jaffa. I just found out that my best friend is dead, and my husband looks at me like I have the plague. You wanna ask me that again?"

No, he was fairly well wishing he hadn't asked in the first place. "Okay, dumb question," he admitted. "Uh, can I... get you anything? Some tea, or... jell-o, or..."

"No." She looked away.

Jack sucked in a breath. "Look, Carter-"

"Don't call me that."

Oy. "Is it, uh, Jackson now?" he asked, the words incredibly unpleasant in his mouth.

"No, but only to avoid the confusion of having two Doctor Jacksons running around the SGC," she answered curtly. "'Carter' is my father. General-"

"Jacob Carter. Yeah, we've met."

She huffed. "Then you understand."

"Uh, no, not really. They actually almost get along," he told her. Almost.

"Really?" she asked coolly. "Well, her life must've been a lot different growing up, because I can't imagine that. And I would never, _ever _go military."

He'd heard that before, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. Still, he needed to route the conversation back to more productive ground. "Look, Carter-"

"My name is Sam."

"Right." How long had it been since he'd called her that? Five years? Six? Back when everything had been casual between them, before it had all gotten so complicated. He settled for not using her name at all. "Here's the thing," he said instead. "There's a pretty good chance that whatever caused this is in your – her – your – lab. You're our best shot at figuring this out."

"No, I'm not."

He blinked. "Why not?"

"Because I'm reasonably certain I was asleep with my husband," she shot back. "So whatever happened, it happened here. _She_ did it, not me, and I'm just as clueless as the rest of you."

"Okay, but-"

"And the notion that she and I might be working on anything even remotely similar is, frankly, absurd. These realities are far too different for that."

"Ah!" Jack took the opportunity and pounced. "See? You already have a theory. And you know more about alternate realities than anybody I know."

She blinked a few times in silence, and he knew he'd made his point. Further, he'd yanked her from Angstville into Sciencefield, and that was a much better place for both of them.

"You're also," he pressed, "the best person I know for figuring out alien technology."

"But I'd be starting from zero," she protested. "I have no idea what she's been working on."

"But you two speak the same language, right? I mean, Carter takes crazy notes."

He didn't know quite what he'd said, but she shrank again, looking away. "Speaking of languages," she said softly, "are all of the devices she's been researching fully translated yet?"

"Uh..." Hadn't Daniel just been telling him about one of them? A... medical device, or something. "No, not all of them."

"Then I can't help you. You should talk to my..." Blinking fast, she bit her lip. "You should talk to your resident archaeologist."

Jack sighed – obviously, Daniel's reaction was seriously weighing on her. "Just take a look for me, huh? The sooner we get this figured out, the sooner we can make it right."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: Monkey in the Middle**  
_The SGC_

_Lochus faborichat e capu capitus vulnus..._

Scribbling translations in his notebook, Daniel paged slowly through the images of the medical device. It all seemed to be about thought control, so while the translations themselves weren't difficult, the ideas were rather abstract.

And the feeling of someone watching him wasn't helping. He glanced back to find Jack leaning against the door frame. "Hey, Jack."

The other man didn't speak, just continued to stare at him darkly.

Daniel went back to his translations, knowing that one of two things would happen: either whatever was bothering Jack would get under his skin enough that he would start talking of his own volition, or he would tire of the fact that Daniel refused to play his game and walk away. However, after a solid five minutes of trying to ignore the eyes burning a hole in the back of his shirt, he just couldn't hold the high ground anymore. "Did you come here just to stand there and look imposing, or did you have something to say?"

"I came here," Jack growled, pushing off the wall to stand upright, "to tell you to grow a pair."

It took him a moment to formulate a response to that, blinking slowly. "Excuse me?"

"You need to go talk to her."

"Are you kidding me?" Daniel could not have been thrown more off-kilter if Jack had actually hit him. "You can't actually want that."

"_She_ wants that," the other man pressed. "She's hurting right now, and you're the only one who can help fix that."

"I... but... uh..." He rocketed to his feet. "Do you have any idea how awkward this is?"

"Yes, Daniel, I know exactly how awkward this is! I stood in these boots first, if you recall! And I sucked it up, because she needed that."

Oh. Right. He'd all but forgotten the _other_ other Sam, the one who'd come through the quantum mirror from a world where she'd been married to Jack. "Okay, but that was different."

"Yeah? Why?" Jack challenged.

"Because... because..." Because it wasn't _him_, that was why. "Because you think about her that way, and I don't!" he protested finally. "You get that she has feelings for you, because you feel the same way about her!"

His friend's face promptly turned so murderous that Daniel counted himself a little bit lucky to be alive. Still, he couldn't help but push the issue. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot," he said sarcastically. "That's the can of worms we're not supposed to open until _the rapture_. Give me a second to seal that back up, would you?"

"That's a crappy excuse, Daniel, and I don't believe it for a second." Jack's voice was sour.

"What do you mean, you don't believe it?"

"Well, for one, that would officially make you the _only_ man on base who doesn't have a thing for her."

The archaeologist studied his friend for a long moment, trying to pin down exactly what it was that bothered his friend so much about that. "Look, I'm not saying she's not a great catch," he said finally. "I mean, she is. Smart, funny, attractive. I've just never thought of her that way."

Jack's expression could only be described as pure disbelief.

"Hey," Daniel defended. "When Sam and I met, I was married. Very happily married, I might add. And when Shar'e disappeared, I was a little too heartbroken to go scouting around for other women. By the time I got over that, _someone_," he pressed, pointing a finger squarely at his friend, "had made it incredibly clear that she wasn't exactly available."

"I did no such thing."

"You _punched_ me in the _face_, Jack!"

The other man's eyebrows rose a little, then a little more as he remembered the little incident with the Land of the Light. Getting up close and personal with a jealous Jack's fist that day for only inquiring as to Sam's health was not something Daniel was apt to forget.

"Yeah, well, that wasn't exactly me," he defended.

"No, it was you, just sans self-control." And it was only one piece of evidence out of a whole file drawer full. "All I'm saying is that I've tried my damndest to stay out of it, Jack, because you're my friend. Because you made your stance on all this pretty clear years ago, and I respect that. Because I didn't want things to get messy, but now..."

"This is about as messy as it gets."

Daniel sighed. "Yeah. So I can't, Jack. I just can't."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine: Blue Jell-O Heals All Wounds**  
_Somewhere... else._

Daniel had lost track of how long he'd been standing in front of the door to her quarters. _Her _quarters, not theirs – the space they'd given Sam to keep an eye on her when it had become abundantly clear to everyone that the two of them could no longer share. Only when he realized that her mashed potatoes were quickly cooling to room temperature and that she liked her jell-o cold did he swallow down the massive lump in his throat and knock.

"Come in!"

She sat mostly in the dark, the two sheets of paper in front of her lit by the desk lamp. "Daniel," she greeted simply from her place across the room, though she didn't get up.

"Uh, hi. I thought you might want some dinner." He knew for a fact that she hadn't left the room all day, but when he started for the small table to set it down, he realized he'd been beaten to the punch. Two other trays sat there – one clearly breakfast, one lunch – both untouched. "Though I'm apparently wrong."

Her eyes bounced from him to the table and back, and she winced a little. "Actually... I am a little hungry."

Was that pity? Or had he just reminded her? He couldn't be sure. "Okay."

Seeming to sense his uncertainty, she added quickly, "I just... I've been working on stuff, and I guess I just forgot it was there. I'm sure your Sam does that all the time."

"She does," he answered with a small smile. "And then I bring her food and make her take a break, and she hates it, but she eats it, anyway. To humor me, mostly, I think. But hey, whatever works." Rather than approach her, he made a space on the table for the third tray and sat it down, then backed away a little – she seemed uncomfortable with him being too close. Still, she stayed at the desk. "I brought blue jell-o," he offered. "It was – is – her favorite. I thought maybe..."

"Mine, too," she answered softly. "You know, Daniel... This might be the first time that you've differentiated between us. That you've talked about her like we're not the same person."

He laughed a little, though it was mirthless. Cleaning his glasses bought himself a little time before he answered. "Actually, I don't think you are. Oddly enough, it's... it's easier for me to think that something went amazingly cosmically wrong than to believe that my wife has lost all touch with reality."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Though now that I've said that out loud, I'm starting to think that maybe I'm the one who needs the psychotherapist."

"It's good to just say it," she answered with a smile. "If I always censored myself when I was about to say something that sounded crazy..."

"You'd be mute?"

She chuckled. "Yeah."

The silence stretched long – and awkward, though less than before. "So, ah... what are you working on?" he asked with overdone cheer, trying to somehow engage the woman.

"Oh. Uh, it's nothing." Quickly, she flipped one sheet over the other, hiding them both – not that he could have seen them from twenty feet away, anyway. "Nothing at all."

"Right." Foiled again. Pointing to the door, he mumbled, "So I'll just, uh..."

"You don't have to go."

He didn't? Really? Well, that was better than getting kicked out, he supposed – although he still wasn't sure whether looking at her was comforting or distressing. He didn't move, maintaining his distance as she moved to the table and sat down in front of the tray of food.

"Can I ask you a question?" he asked softly, earning a wary look. "It's not... Look," he pressed, "I get what you're trying to do. I know you want to protect your SGC, the people you love, and I think that's admirable. And I promise not to ask you anything that might put them in danger. At least, I won't mean to, and you can tell me to shove it if I do."

She considered that for a moment over a mouthful of mashed potatoes, then shrugged. "Sure."

"You just... You seem so convinced that this is all a hallucination. And that you know who's causing it, and I can't help but wonder... Who is Fifth? And why are you so afraid of him?"

"I'm not afraid," she shot back.

He gave her a sad smile. "I can still read you like a book," he told her softly, "mine or not."

With a sigh, she set down the fork and pushed her tray away. "He's a human-form Replicator. The fifth off the line."

"A... what?"

"Have you not met the Replicators? Lucky you."

"No, we have," he told her. "But they're... metal. Little toy spider things."

She nodded. "They were. They've evolved into the forms of their creators – the Ancients. So they look human. They like to act human. They... They think... they feel..."

Daniel stopped her with a hand. "Just for clarity – is that 'they think _and _they feel' or 'they think _that _they feel?'"

"A little of both, I guess. I don't doubt that they have feelings, but as to what they are or how deep they go... Well, that seems to be the question. And it doesn't help that they handle them at about the same level as a four-year-old in the middle of a temper tantrum."

"Ah. And this Fifth – his feelings are..."

"For me."

Daniel nearly choked on nothing but air, and it took him a few moments to recollect himself. "Excuse me?" A Replicator – a machine – was in love with his wife? "That's absurd."

"Oh, stick with me, Daniel, because I think I need to tell you this," she pressed. "I think I need you to understand."

Something in her voice caught his attention – she really did seem a little desperate. Slowly, giving her all the time in the world to object, he moved to the other chair and sat across from her. "Okay."

"We encountered them for the first time a few years ago. The others were hell-bent on total destruction, but Fifth... is different, somehow. He offered to help us escape in exchange for taking him with us, and we agreed, but..."

"He didn't follow through?" he offered when her voice trailed off.

Bright blue eyes whipped up to his. "Oh, no. _He_ followed through."

Daniel raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You didn't."

"Colonel O'Neill ordered me to rig the device we were using so that he wouldn't make it in time. I didn't want to, but I had my orders, and we left him behind." Clearly upset, she looked away. "And even with everything that happened after that, I'm still not sure who was right."

"I take it that wasn't the last you heard from him," he surmised, something in her tone making him distinctly uneasy.

"He found me again. A few weeks ago. He kidnapped me."

His stomach abruptly flip-flopped, and suddenly it occurred to him that her silence might have been better. The way she intently studied her tightly folded hands rather than look at him didn't set him at ease.

"As I'm sure you know, the Replicators can interface with any kind of technology," she went on softly. "Turns out, that includes the human brain. He... The only word we have for it is torture, but that's not really... It's not just that he _shows_ you things, but he can make you _feel_ anything – fear, pain. Worse than anything you've ever imagined. And he did that for I don't know how long."

The anxiety for her building in his chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. Daniel knew that it happened, of course – war was hell. People suffered unspeakable things at the hands of their enemies, but as horrible as it made him feel for even thinking it, that was _people_. _Other_ people. Not them. Not... her.

"And then one day, I just... woke up. I was on a farm in Montana," she said wryly, "with horses and chickens. And a man I care about, who insisted that we'd moved there after the SGC had become too stressful. It was all so right – the idea of it. And it was so real. But it was also just... wrong, somehow."

"It was an illusion," Daniel guessed. "Created by Fifth."

"Yes." For the first time in a long time, she met his eyes. "He was the man, of course, in disguise. He thought we could live happily ever after, and I'd never know the difference. In fact, he insisted on it well after I told him I wasn't falling for it. Or him. See, Daniel... that place felt a lot like here. And I was putting my foot down. Hard. Just like I had to do on that stupid farm, but... the longer I'm here, the less I think I'm right."

Daniel sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, nodding. So she _was_ a little crazy – but she'd been driven to it by a madman. It explained a lot: her brutal insistence that they weren't married, her anger, her silence. The distance she'd so carefully kept from them all. But they couldn't maintain that forever. Slowly, he pushed one of the trays aside and slid a hand across the table toward her.

She stared at it for a long time before slowly reaching out and tangling her fingers in his. When she looked up, her eyes glistened with tears. "In my world, Daniel, you're my best friend. My brother. You're the one who got me through it – who held me when I cried. I've missed you, Daniel."

He clutched her hand a little tighter. "I've missed you, too."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten: The Man-Rules**  
_The SGC_

"How's it coming?"

Sam glanced up at the colonel with a small smile. "It's, um, okay. You were right – the notes are good. And anything that's already been fully examined, I can pretty much eliminate, so I'm starting with that."

Seemed like a decent enough plan to Jack. "You've been here a couple of hours. How 'bout some dinner?"

"Thanks, but I'm not very hungry."

"O...kay." He debated forcing her to take a break, much as he would have with his own Carter... but she wasn't. And that was what tipped the scale. "I'll, uh, leave you to it, then."

He was most of the way out the door before she said, "You know, actually, I... wouldn't turn down the company."

In hindsight, he thought as they stepped into the quarters she'd been given and she didn't even turn on all the lights, this had been a really, really bad idea. She probably didn't mean it to, but dinner... her quarters... dim lights... It all had this aura of impropriety about it that would have made Jack oddly giddy.

In any circumstances but these.

She glanced up at him and caught him staring, her wide blue eyes liquid and completely unguarded in a way they hadn't been in years. Quickly, before he could do something he'd regret later, he choked, "So how long have you and Daniel been married?"

He really didn't want to know the answer – _really _didn't want to know – but he needed to steer the conversation somewhere safer.

"Four years," she answered easily.

Jack nearly choked on his mashed potatoes. "Uh, wow."

She raised an eyebrow. "Wow what?"

"It's just that, uh... Damn, he got over Shar'e quick." The words were out of his mouth before he realized the can of worms he was opening.

It was her turn to choke. "Who? _Excuse_ me?"

Well, crap. This line of conversation was safe for him... but apparently not for Daniel. Could you screw over your best friend if he wasn't your best friend in the other reality?

Yeah, Jack was pretty sure that was still against just about every man-rule there was. "Must've been different over there," he shrugged.

She shot him a dirty look – of course he couldn't get off that easily. "'Splain, Lucy."

"Shar'e is, um..." He coughed. "She's the woman Daniel was, um, given. On Abydos."

She blinked. Then again. "I don't even know what part of that to address first." Taking a long sip of water, she finally managed, "Given?" Then, "No, wait, don't answer that. But... Abydos?"

"Yeah."

"That's not one I've heard of."

Was that even possible? "You know, Abydos," he insisted. "It's... Abydos. The address on the thing from Giza? Abydos."

"Oh," she said softly. "I didn't know it had a name. But Daniel didn't go there – that was purely a military mission."

Jack sucked in a breath. "They blew it up, didn't they? They blew the whole damn thing up." It was a difficult thing to conceive of – Skaa'ra, Shar'e, Kasuf... all dead. At their hands. His hands. "Well, now I get why you don't know me," he offered wryly.

"I'm sorry? I don't follow."

"That mission – I never came back."

She smiled, but it was twisted, confused. "You never went," she corrected. "He had a Polish name. Kaslewski, Kaminski..."

"Kowalsky."

"No, that was his second-in-command. The military guys used to make fun of them all the time because their names were so similar. You weren't there. In my world, you and I have never met." She met his eyes over the rim of her water glass as she took a sip, and this time, Jack was pretty positive the electricity wasn't just one way. "Believe me," she murmured into the glass, "that I would remember."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven: Re-Version**  
_In an SGC so very, very far from ours_

Daniel waved casually to the guards before stepping into his wife's lab, not entirely sure what to expect. What he found knocked him back a step. "Uh... redecorating?" he managed.

"What?" Sam glanced up from the box she was filling, eyes wide in surprise.

"You just... look like you're moving in, that's all." He wasn't sure he liked that. It meant that this Sam was stepping out of her shell, sure, getting more comfortable with them, and that was a good thing. But it just seemed so permanent. Like... acknowledgment of the fact that his wife was never coming back.

"It's just that this lab is a lot different from mine," she said absently, picking up something from the table, considering it for a moment, then putting it in the box. "Hey, since you're here, help me move this thing. I've got it all unplugged; it's just too heavy to move by myself."

Daniel just stared at her as she levered to her feet and crossed the lab to a bank of... Oh, who was he kidding? He'd never known what half of her equipment was or what it did. "That thing has to weigh four hundred pounds."

"Yeah, but it kind of slides. I just need you to make sure it doesn't tip."

He bit his lip. He really, really couldn't help her demolish his wife's second home.

"I promise, the two of us can do it," she pressed. "Siler and I have done it before." When he still didn't move, she seemed to pick up that his hesitation ran deeper – maybe, he thought, she could read him as well as he could read her. "Daniel? What's wrong?"

He shrugged. "I just... She's coming back," he said softly. He had to believe that.

Her eyes widened a little as she got his meaning. "Actually, that's what I'm working on," she assured him. "See, I was in my lab when this happened, but your Sam was asleep. So if one of us did something, it had to be me, right?"

"I... suppose."

"So what I'm trying to do – what I've _been _trying to do – is remember where everything was. Something I might have accidentally touched or activated, or... two devices that could interact, somehow, to cause this. I tried drawing it out, but it just wasn't working, so I thought if I could _be _here, could recreate the space, maybe it would help me remember."

"Oh." Well, he supposed he was okay with that. He started across the room toward her, but two sheets of paper on the nearly empty lab table caught his eye. They were sketches. Maps, almost, of the table, with the computer and several different objects he didn't recognize marked out. "This is what you were working on," he realized.

"Yeah. You gonna help me move this, or not?"

"Right. But, um... what are the odds you two would have the same stuff? I mean, assuming we're talking about two different realities here, they seem to be awfully different. She may not have the devices you need."

"That's probably true," she shrugged, "but it doesn't matter."

"Uh... how can that not matter?"

A broad smile spread across her face. "I know where they all came from. If I can pin it down to a few, we can go get them."

Her excitement was contagious... to a point. "You," he specified. "You can go get them. Personally, I like to stay on here on terra firma."

"Chicken," she teased.

With a shrug, he crossed the rest of the way and took a solid grip on the opposite side of the machine. "And frankly, I don't see how you can go back out there, with what you've already been through."

"Some things are too important, Daniel," she answered simply. "There are battles that have to be fought."

She braced herself to shove the tall rack, but Daniel put a foot up against it, blocking it. "I know. I just never thought _we_ would be the ones fighting them. If my Sam went through what you went through, I just... don't know if I could handle that. If we could handle that."

"You," she grunted, shoving against it anyway until he moved his foot and helped her slide it, "are a lot stronger than you think."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve: No Competition**  
_The SGC_

"I. Want. Carter. Back."

Both of Jack's teammates pretty much ignored him until he punctuated the idea by slamming his breakfast tray onto the table. "You two not getting along?" Daniel asked wryly.

Jack just glared at him, since he could hardly actually answer. How could he tell him that no, it wasn't that they _weren't_ getting along, it was that they were getting along a little too well? That she was everything he loved about Carter (okay, almost everything – Carter with a P90 was absolutely drop-dead sexy) with none of the negatives? No court martial, no worrying about ruining her career, no awkwardness from the last eight years of creeping closer and running away.

Working on the problem, diving into Carter's toys, had been good for her. With her brain occupied, she'd been more cheerful, more... playful. Teasing, at times. They were good together, easy, and he would swear up and down that he wasn't the only one who felt the draw.

There was just that one teeny, tiny, little problem.

She was _married _to his _best friend_. Crap.

"I would just like to point out," Daniel went on, "since this never, ever happens to me, that there is actually a universe out there where I won the girl."

Jack seriously considered punching him again, but settled for a different tactic. "And I would just like to point out," he countered, "that she'd never met me."

"It would seem that it cannot be considered winning when there is in fact no competition," Teal'c put in.

Daniel chewed on that for a long moment, composing himself with a sip of his coffee. "Thank you both," he said finally, "for helping to keep my ego in check like the good friends you are. And by that, I clearly mean... Way to kick a guy when he's down."

Okay, yeah, Jack was an ass. And he was just about to try and apologize when the other man glanced up, abruptly set his coffee down, and got to his feet. "Well, that's my cue."

"Daniel-"

But the other man was already gone, and it didn't take Jack long to realize that it wasn't his fault. Carter – Sam – whoever – was heading for the line to pick out her usual selection of coffee and fruit. She headed straight for their table.

"Have a seat," Jack invited.

"Oh, no, thanks. I'm headed back to the lab." The smile she shot him was absolutely dazzling. "But you will come get me for lunch, won't you? You know how I forget."

"Yeah, sure."

He watched her go, the civilian clothes showing off her curves to a tee. When he turned back to the table, however, he realized he had a stupid grin plastered on his face. And that Teal'c had missed nothing.

"I would advise you, O'Neill-"

"Not to get my hopes up?" he interrupted dryly.

"Indeed. Though their experiences may differ, their characters remain the same. I do not believe this Carter would be unfaithful to Daniel Jackson. And if she were, she would likely suffer that guilt for the rest of her life."

"Yeah," Jack grunted. "I know." Taking one last, long sip of his coffee, he set the mug on his tray and pushed to his feet. "I want Carter back, Teal'c," he repeated. "Yesterday."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen: Missing... who?**  
_Nope. Not here._

Daniel stepped into Sam's lab to find her slumped in her chair, her head back and hands over her eyes. "Hey," he called softly. "Are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." She shook herself a little and straightened. "I'm just, uh... I'm just tired."

She hoped he wouldn't push the issue, but he knew her better than that. Grabbing a stool, he pulled it close in front of her and stooped a little to look her in the eye. "Did you sleep last night at all?"

"Not a lot."

"Let me guess," he ventured. "Your body was in bed, but your brain was here?"

There wouldn't have been any point in lying to him – he'd have known better – and she sighed. "No. It was a lot further away than that."

"Ah." He cringed a little. "I guess I've kind of been stuck in my own problems, but... you must miss him."

Startled, her head shot up. "What?" She'd hardly mentioned the colonel; she was sure of it. And 'husband' or not, there was no way in the world she was _that _transparent.

"The vision. You said there was a... a man you cared about. You must miss him a lot."

"Oh," she said softly. Pete. She wondered if he even knew she was missing – if he was concerned about her. "Right."

"Something else I should know?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh, no." She could hardly admit to him – she'd only just realized it herself – that she'd spent very little of her time worrying about getting back to Pete and the rest of it missing her team.

Oh, who was she kidding? She missed the colonel. It wasn't Daniel who was supposed to be standing in her lab, trying to cheer her up – it was him. The stupid magnifying glass tricks, the way he played with things he shouldn't... It was endearing, even if she pretended to be annoyed. And spending so much time in her lab without even one interruption was getting harder by the hour.

"So, I've narrowed down the options some," she told him, trying to maneuver the conversation back to safer ground. "I nixed a couple of things that I was done with and just hadn't handed off yet. And I think, since I don't remember doing anything, that I have to consider that I might have dozed off and done something accidentally."

"Valid theory," he answered with a shrug. "But what does that mean?"

"That it was something close by. It only ever happens when I'm sitting right here, in reach of my computer and the magnifying glass, so it would have been something I could reach from right here."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "So how many does that leave?"

"Four. And I've learned I really need to clean out my lab," she said with a sigh. "I've been writing reports for General Hammond this morning – everything I remember about the planets we found them on. I'm hoping he'll let us retrieve them."

He coughed. "Four?"

"Yeah. But this one," she said, pointing to one of her sketches, "is the one I was working on at the time and probably the most likely culprit. You were in the middle of doing the translations, but I never got a chance to ask what you thought it was."

"Do you remember any of the writing on it?" he asked, suddenly intensely interested.

"Uh, no," she chuckled. "The colonel may think what I speak isn't English, but I disagree."

"Well, I'd love to get a look at it. Let's go talk to General Hammond."

She gave him a smile. "Sure. Give me a minute to print out this report, and I'll meet you up there."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Deus ex Biliskner**

"I ought to be on that team."

Apparently, the other Sam felt much more free to use her baby blue eyes to her advantage, for General Hammond had clearly grown immune. "As true as that may be, Sam, you're not going through that Gate if for no other reason than the fact that your father would murder me in my sleep."

She huffed, crossing her arms as she turned to stare through the glass at the other SG-1 – the team that would be going to retrieve the device without her. Beside her, Daniel looked a little smug.

"Dial the planet," the general ordered.

"Initiating dialing sequence," Sergeant Harriman responded immediately, and the Gate began its slow spiral.

Before it could get too far, however, an all-too-familiar light began on the ramp and spread until it enveloped the entire space, shining through the massive windows into the Control Room, as well. And then, as abruptly as it started, it shut off, leaving one tiny little alien standing on the ramp.

This SGC was apparently not used to Asgard transportation beams, for the entire security contingent and SG-1 leveled their weapons on the visitor. "Hold your fire!" Sam yelled through the microphone.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, but she was already halfway to the stairs and only vaguely heard the general's order to abort the dialing sequence.

"I knew it!" she cried as she burst through the blast doors, ignoring the other soldiers and heading full-tilt for the little gray man on the ramp. "I _knew_ someone was messing with me!"

"My apologies, Major Carter."

Daniel skidded to a halt at her heels, General Hammond not far behind him. "Sam?" the younger man asked again, his eyes playing ping-pong between her and their uninvited guest. "What's going on?"

"This is Thor," she explained... then second-guessed herself. She was, after all, in an alternate universe. Or something. "You _are _Thor, right? I mean, you look like Thor, you sound like Thor, but..." For an Asgard, that wasn't saying much.

"Indeed."

"Good. This is Thor," she repeated to the other two. "Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet."

"Asgard?" Daniel nearly squeaked the word. "You're... you're one of the four ancient races! We've only read about you. We didn't even know you still existed!"

"We do not to interfere with races less advanced than ours for fear of altering their natural evolutionary path," Thor explained, though Sam knew it was the 'lite' version of the explanation – the Protected Planets Treaty with the Goa'uld forbade it. "Unfortunately, that policy has been broken, and I had no other choice but to contact you to right our wrong."

"Which makes it my turn to ask the question: what's going on?" Sam pressed.

"Loki."

Of course. She sighed.

"Who is this Loki?" General Hammond asked.

Daniel jumped at the chance. "He's part of Norse mythology – the trickster, troublemaker. Although as the myths evolve, he becomes more and more malicious and a threat to the established order of things."

"Yup," Sam drawled. "That's Loki." Shooting the alien a dirty look, she added, "I thought you guys reined him in."

"In that reality," he insisted, "we have."

"But not in this one. So what did he do this time? And why me, and not his favorite guinea pig, Colonel O'Neill?" Then again, she didn't know where the colonel was, exactly, so maybe neither did Loki. "Scratch that last part. Why me?"

The alien blinked. "I believe he wished his experiments to cause as little disruption as possible. Your scientific abilities are much the same in both."

As awed as Daniel was, he clearly didn't enjoy being toyed with; he crossed his arms. "Well, you can tell him he failed. We've been seriously disrupted."

"What was the intent of this experiment?" General Hammond pressed, concerned.

"The Replicators are a serious threat to our way of life in this universe as well as Major Carter's," he explained. "However, the cause here is nearly lost. Loki believed that if he could find a way to transfer a consciousness between two realities-"

"Their loss could be your gain," Sam interrupted. "He planned to move the remaining Asgard to our reality to bolster the race and better their chances."

Thor gave the tiniest of nods. "He attempted the procedure on a human first, to ensure that the process was feasible before risking the life of an Asgard."

Sam shot him the dirtiest look she could possibly muster.

"Now that we know that it is possible, their beings will be split among many universes, for, as you know, duplication within a reality leads to entropic forces that even we cannot control. It will, in a way, allow us to revive some of our race that we lost long ago."

"Wait – the dead ones?" Daniel exclaimed. "He's going to send the survivors here to other realities where they're already dead? That doesn't make any sense. How do you intend to resuscitate their bodies, exactly?" A second thought hit him, and anger once again tinged his voice. "Or do you just intend to steal other people's bodies, like you did to my wife?"

None of the above, but that was an awfully long story. "The Asgard, uh, reproduce asexually." She chose not to notice the uncomfortable look on Hammond's face at that. "They clone their physical forms and transfer their consciousnesses into them, so it wouldn't have to be a replacement. They could simply put it into an empty shell."

"Oh," Daniel said, his tone sheepish.

Sam turned back to the alien on the ramp. "Thor, as much as I'm sure these guys would love to chat with you... I want to go home. Tell me this is reversible."

"I have been told that it is," the little gray man confirmed. "For Loki's sake, that must be the case."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "You're not from here, are you? You're my Thor. You came to bring me back."

"That was risky," Daniel commented.

"If Major Carter cannot return to her own world, I fear that both our races are doomed. It was worth the risk."

Ignoring the surprised looks on every face in the room, she asked, "So what now? How do we fix this?"

"I will transport us both to the Asgard vessel in orbit," he explained. "We will complete the transfer from there."

"Wait!" Daniel cried. "You can't leave yet. I mean, you can, but pass the message on that we want to talk to you. The other you. _Our _you."

"I am afraid that is not possible. The _Biliskner _was destroyed by Replicators several of your years ago. However, I will send Freyr, the new supreme commander of the fleet, to share what information he can before it is too late."

Thor had a point – the subsection of the Protected Planets Treaty that prevented the Asgard from helping humans advance didn't mean much anymore if the race was dying out. There would be no one left to enforce their side of the treaty, anyway. Sam offered him a sad smile. "Give me a minute, would you? And then you can beam me up."

"Very well." With another flash of light, the alien disappeared.

Sam turned slowly to face Daniel, only to find him – as she'd expected – staring intently back. "Well," he said softly, "this is going to be quite the awkward goodbye."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen: Two Wrongs**

SG-1 (with Carter substitute) stared intently at the bed where Thor's body lay, watching for any sign of his return. Had Loki been successful the first time? Had Thor ever reached Carter? They had no way to know.

Suddenly, the lights on the stasis pod went crazy, cycling through their colors and making the three humans jump a little – Teal'c, of course, remained stoic as ever. The glass slid back to allow the alien to sit upright. "The transfer was successful," he told them with a tiny nod. "Loki will soon attempt to return Major Carter to this universe as well."

"Oh, thank God."

Jack raised an eyebrow at the replacement scientist. And here he thought they'd been doing quite well. "We that bad?"

"I... no, of course not," she gushed quickly. "I didn't mean that, um-"

"He was messing with you," Daniel assured her before quickly averting his gaze. Again. Clearly, he would be the most grateful to have the old Carter back, although Jack was a _very_ close second.

"Well," she said softly, "it's been-"

She shut off like a switch, eyes closing, knees giving way, leaving Jack scrambling to catch her as she wilted to the cool, hard floor. He pulled her gently into his lap and cast the alien an irritated look. "You could've warned us, you know."

If he'd had eyebrows, Jack was pretty sure the alien would have been raising them. "I believed that I had."

"Did it work?" Kneeling in front of him, Daniel cast a concerned look at the woman in Jack's arm. She just lay there, completely limp. Lifeless.

The archaeologist's question was a valid one, and the longer she stayed unconscious, the more concerned Jack got. "Thor? Buddy?" he asked finally. "She's okay... right?"

The alien merely blinked.

And then so did Carter, sucking in a breath. The men watched her as she blinked a few times, her gaze landing on Daniel, then Teal'c, before finally finding the colonel.

His heart pounded in his chest. Had it worked? Which Carter was he holding – his or Daniel's?

He almost choked on the thought.

She blinked once more, long and slow, and then murmured, "Sir?"

"Hey, Carter," he answered. It was surprisingly difficult to keep his voice as light as he meant it to be. "Welcome back."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: The Forgotten List**

"God, it's good to be home." Sam scrunched her toes lovingly in the carpet as she loaded up another forkful of fried rice.

"Was the alternate reality unpleasant?" Teal'c asked from his place on the couch beside her.

That wasn't really something she wanted to go into – and it wasn't what she'd meant, anyway. "No, no. It's good to be _home_," she corrected, pointing to the floor beneath her feet. "Even before that whole mess, I hadn't been off the base in over a week."

Colonel O'Neill looked up from the armchair, surprised. "You hadn't?"

She shook her head. No, she'd been spending most of her time writing up reports – on everything she'd learned about Fifth and the Replicators, or about the Ancient Repository of knowledge, or, before that, the devices they'd retrieved from that warehouse with the human/Goa'uld hybrid... Meanwhile, the colonel had been either sleeping in a stasis chamber or on medical leave, as he had somehow (even though he was _perfectly healthy_) convinced both the new doctor and the new base commander that he was entitled.

"You know, Jack," Daniel spoke up, "some of us have responsibilities other than just running around on other worlds carrying a big gun and pissing off aliens."

"You _lie_," the colonel accused, shooting his friend a dirty look.

Yes, it was nice to be home. Until Daniel asked, "Even though I don't think I want to know, I have to ask. What was it like over there? I mean, how different was it?"

"Pretty damn different, Daniel," she answered curtly.

"I'm just intrigued, because it seems like some things have been constant in every reality we've seen."

Again, she shook her head. Hammond, Janet, Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c... all wrong. "Walter was there. That was about where the similarities ended."

"Well," Colonel O'Neill spoke up dryly, perhaps still a little miffed from being picked on earlier, "at least you had Daniel. For _companionship_."

Sam's fork froze mid-way to her mouth, his tone making it crystal clear that he meant that in the dirtiest way possible. Slowly, she set down the fork, then removed her plate from her lap to the coffee table for safety. "Remember that list we have, sir?" she asked. "Of the things we're never supposed to mention again?"

The second he leaned forward in the chair, excited, she knew she was in trouble. "You mean like the time on P3X-595 where you drank that stuff that made you take off your-"

"Since you bring that up all the time, no," she interrupted. "I mean the one about things like P5X-223."

His expression went blank.

"Uh," Daniel spoke up, "that would be the one where you got a little drunk and fooled around with the chief's daughter and ended up with hives on, um..."

Sam rocketed to her feet indignantly. "And that's the _second _time some alien woman has given you an S-"

"Oh, _that_ list!" the colonel insisted before she could finish the sentence. "Well, you know, since it's a list about things we're supposed to forget, I guess I... forgot."

"Uh-huh." That was a total load of bull. "This is officially going on the top of that list, sir. So we need never mention it again."

That seemed to satisfy him – probably because that list contained a lot more things that applied to him than her, and even though her embarrassment threshold was a lot lower than his, it probably equaled out. He went back to his Chinese, and Sam settled onto the couch.

"O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up, "have you not often told me that lists are finite?"

The colonel stared at him in a way that clearly said he hadn't.

"I believe you once told me that in order for an item to be added to the top of a list, the item last in line must..."

"Fall off," Colonel O'Neill supplied when the Jaffa trailed off for lack of the correct terminology.

"Indeed. What, then, has fallen off this list?"

Oh, there were so many options, and all of them sucked. The other three caught each others' eyes for only a millisecond before returning to their plates with gusto.


	17. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Sam crawled across the queen-size bed to her side and curled up with her head in the middle, hugging her husband's pillow and taking a deep breath. "God, it's good to be home."

"Yeah?" Daniel asked, letting his eyes roam freely up her bare legs.

"Yeah. They didn't have Daniel-scented pillows over there. It's hard to sleep on Eau d'Air Force."

He chuckled, giving her a sympathetic smile. They rarely spent a night apart – at least he'd still had her things around. "You should've asked the other me for one."

"For a used pillow? Yeah, 'cause he didn't think I was creepy enough."

Daniel tugged his shirt over his head and perched on the edge of the mattress. "He thought you were creepy?"

She shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not sure what he was thinking. He avoided me at all costs."

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart." It had been hard enough with a Sam that was just crazy – he couldn't imagine being totally snubbed. Curling up beside her, he changed the subject. "So, I have a confession to make."

She arched a brow. "Oh, yeah?"

"I kissed a woman who wasn't my wife."

The delivery was absolutely dead-pan, and it made her grin even as she smacked him with the pillow. "Well, if we're playing True Confessions, then... I kissed a man who wasn't my husband."

"Hussy," he teased, leaning down to press a tender kiss to her forehead before pulling her close to his chest. "He really avoided you?" he murmured softly into her hair. "That's funny. She told me they were like siblings."

"Fighting siblings, maybe," she admitted. "I don't know what it was, exactly, but he just couldn't handle it."

"Must've been rough to be alone."

"I wasn't, really," she insisted. "Colonel O'Neill took good care of me."

Daniel yanked back to look her in the eyes. "_Colonel_ O'Neill?"

"Yeah, why?"

"She didn't talk about her life much, but I guarantee you she mentioned him twice as much as all the others combined," he pressed. "Trailing second was a guy named Teal."

"Teal'c," she corrected. "Long story, that."

"But about the colonel. And her," he said. "I wonder..."

"You wonder if I stepped into the middle of something?" Biting her lip, she thought back to the glances, the way he'd stood a little too close. She'd known he was interested, but she hadn't really considered that it might have stemmed from the other Sam. Especially since... "That would be a big something, Daniel."

"Aren't there rules against that?" he asked, oblivious. "The whole fraternization thing?"

"Like I said... a big something. Sleeping with your CO is way crazier than walking through the Stargate." She grinned maliciously. "He was pretty hot, though. And _definitely_ interested."

It was his turn to smack her with the pillow. "So, this man you kissed who wasn't me. He _was_ me, wasn't he?" When she didn't answer, he pressed, "Wasn't he?"

"Of course he was, you dolt." Wrapping her arms firmly around him, she drove him to his back and kissed him soundly. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." She hadn't noticed his hands drifting down until they caught the hem of her nightgown and started inching it up. "You know what else I missed?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

"Ooh, tell me," she murmured.

Leaning up a little, he murmured something in her ear that made her giggle. One hand reached over to shut off the light before he flipped her over and showed her exactly what he'd been missing.

~/~

Sam had run from that potentially embarrassing conversation in her living room as quickly as possible, excusing herself to clean up the leftovers and load the dishwasher. Scraping the rice remnants from her plate into the sink, she leaned over and stuck it into the tray of the dishwasher.

When she stood up, she had a guest. Colonel O'Neill stepped sideways along the counter – closer, closer, until a light hip-check forced her a step toward the open appliance. He followed right behind, their arms pressed against each other as he stepped in front of the sink. She couldn't help it. She grinned.

There was nothing left on his plate, but he pretended to scrape it off, anyway, holding her sandwiched between him and the open dishwasher. Only when he handed over the dish, still not looking at her, did he say, "I'm glad you're back, Carter."

"So am I, sir," she murmured, relishing in the warm of his body so close to hers. "So am I."


End file.
